Page images
PDF
EPUB

Where'er from time thou court'st relief,
The Muse shall still, with social grief,
Her gentlest promise keep;

Even humbled Harting's cottaged vale
Shall learn the sad repeated tale,
And bid her shepherds weep.

ODE TO EVENING.

IF aught of oaten stop, or pastoral song,
May hope, chaste Eve, to soothe thy modest ear,
Like thy own brawling springs,

Thy springs, and dying gales;

O, Nymph reserved, while now the bright-haired sun Sits in yon western tent, whose cloudy skirts,

With brede ethereal wove,

O'erhang his wavy bed:

Now air is hushed, save where the weak-eyed bat With short shrill shriek flits by on leathern wing; Or where the beetle winds

His small but sullen horn,

As oft he rises 'midst the twilight path,
Against the pilgrim borne in heedless hum :

Now teach me, maid composed,

To breathe some softened strain,

Whose numbers, stealing through thy darkening vale,

May not unseemly with its stillness suit;

As, musing slow, I hail

Thy genial loved return!

For when thy folding-star arising shows
His paly circlet, at his warning lamp
The fragrant Hours, and Elves
Who slept in buds the day,

And many a Nymph who wreathes her brows with sedge,
And sheds the freshening dew, and, lovelier still,

The pensive Pleasures sweet,

Prepare thy shadowy car.

Then let me rove some wild and heathy scene;
Or find some ruin, 'midst its dreary dells,
Whose walls more awful nod

By thy religious gleams.

Or, if chill blustering winds, or driving rain,
Prevent my willing feet, be mine the hut,
That, from the mountain's side,

Views wilds, and swelling floods,

And hamlets brown, and dim-discovered spires;
And hears their simple bell, and marks o'er all
Thy dewy fingers draw

The gradual dusky veil.

While Spring shall pour his showers, as oft he wont,
And bathe thy breathing tresses, meekest Eve!
While Summer loves to sport
Beneath thy lingering light;

While sallow Autumn fills thy lap with leaves; Or Winter, yelling through the troublous air, Affrights thy shrinking train,

And rudely rends thy robes;

So long, regardful of thy quiet rule,
Shall Fancy, Friendship, Science, smiling Peace,
Thy gentlest influence own,
And love thy favorite name!

ODE TO PEACE.

O THOU, who badest thy turtles bear
Swift from his grasp thy golden hair,
And sought'st thy native skies;
When War, by vultures drawn from far,
To Britain bent his iron car,

And bade his storms arise!

Tired of his rude tyrannic sway,
Our youth shall fix some festive day,

His sullen shrines to burn :

But thou who hear'st the turning spheres,
What sounds may charm thy partial ears,
And gain thy blest return!

O Peace, thy injured robes up-bind!
O rise and leave not one behind
Of all thy beamy train !

The British Lion, goddess sweet,

Lies stretched on earth to kiss thy feet,
And own thy holier reign.

Let others court thy transient smile,
But come to grace thy western isle,
By warlike Honor led;

And, while around her ports rejoice,
While all her sons adore thy choice,
With him forever wed!

THE MANNERS.

AN ODE.

FAREWELL, for clearer ken designed,
The dim-discovered tracts of mind;
Truths which, from action's paths retired,
My silent search in vain required!
No more my sail that deep explores;
No more I search those magic shores;
What regions part the world of soul,
Or whence thy streams, Opinion, roll:
If e'er I round such fairy field,
Some power impart the spear and shield,
At which the wizard Passions fly;
By which the giant Follies die!

Farewell the porch whose roof is seen
Arched with the enlivening olive's green:
Where Science, pranked in tissued vest,
By Reason, Pride, and Fancy drest,
Comes, like a bride, so trim arrayed,
To wed with Doubt in Plato's shade!

Youth of the quick uncheated sight, Thy walks, Observance, more invite!

O thou who lovest that ampler range,
Where life's wide prospects round thee change,
And, with her mingling sons allied,
Throwest the prattling page aside,
To me, in converse sweet, impart
To read in man the native heart;
To learn, where Science sure is found,
From Nature as she lives around;
And, gazing oft her mirror true,
By turns each shifting image view!
Till meddling Art's officious lore
Reverse the lessons taught before;
Alluring from a safer rule,

To dream in her enchanted school:
Thou, Heaven, whate'er of great we boast,
Hast blest this social science most.

Retiring hence to thoughtful cell,
As Fancy breathes her potent spell,
Not vain she finds the charmful task,
In pageant quaint, in motley mask;
Behold, before her musing eyes,
The countless Manners round her rise;
While, ever varying as they pass,
To some Contempt applies her glass :
With these the white-robed maids combine;
And those the laughing Satyrs join!
But who is he whom now she views,
In robe of wild contending hues?
Thou by the Passions nursed, I greet
The comic sock that binds thy feet!

« PreviousContinue »